Eloquent Addresses by Dr. James R. Wilson and Rev. W.H. Scudder.
MANY PEOPLE SEND REGRETS
___________
The Value of Whitman's Services to the Country Extolled
_____
After the arrival of the trains, bearing the returning excursionists from the scene of the dedication, the procession re-formed at the O.R.&N. depot and headed by the fife-and-drum corps and the Indian War Veterans, marched to the Walla Walla opera house, where the chief exercises of the day were held.
By 11:30, the time set for the beginning of the program fully 2500 persons were crowded within the structure, every inch of available space being occupied. Hundreds of others, (?) to get within the building but still eager to listen to the various addresses, were crowded about the entrance.
The exercises were opened with a selection rendered by the Fourth United States Cavalry band under the leadership of Professor W.S. Littleton. Following this was an eloquent prayer by Rev. E.L. Smith.
At the conclusion of the devotional exercises, President S.B.L. Penrose of Whitman college, who officiated as president of the day, introduced Rev. James R. Wilson, D.D. of Portland, the orator of the occasion. Mr. Wilson's address was delivered in a most ale and entertaining manner, his fine vote and bearing and his eloquent flow of language completely captivating the entire audience and holding each listener spellbound until its close.
He spoke as follows:
The event, on the scene and on the anniversary of which we have met today, was of a kind that not seldom marked the course of the early settlement of our country. There was little in its outward circumstances to distinguish it from a score of other massacres that had marked the settlement of the Atlantic seaboard, and later the settlement of the valley of the Mississippi. And it was not radically different from those in motive.
We need not look far for the
exciting cause of the deed, nor need we vex our minds with the thought
of a dark conspiracy on the part of those whose religious or commercial
interests may be thought to have found promise of furtherance in the event.
A native tribe, among whom were many restless and turbulent spirits, the
tribe now grown jealous because of the recent rapid encroachments of the
whites upon their territory,
their superstitious fears aroused by the prevalence at
the time of a malignant epidemic, and the presence among them of one malicious
spirit as instigator and leader, are enough to account for the whole
bloody deed.
The blow which fell here so cruelly and with such calamitous results often in those times impended over other communities and sometimes fell elsewhere in this valley. For this reason, the recalling afresh today of this event, with its harrowing details, serves to remind us at how great cost in endurance and suffering the foundations of these states were laid and the conditions of our prosperity and happiness secured.
We of these prosperous commonwealths are happy in having yet with us a goody though diminishing company of those men and women who shared with these who lie here buried, and with those whose graves are elsewhere, the toils and privations and anxieties of those times of difficult and perilous beginnings. To you of this number who are here today, and through you to all your company, we extend a heart-felt greeting as to the worthy and honored survivors of a noble generation; and we pray God, the God who led you to this land and prospered you in it, that He may yet give you many days in which to live and enjoy the fruits of your sufferings and toil, and in which to remind us and our children of what the men and women of that generation endured and achieved, and of what they themselves were.
The constituency of this assembly,
as well as the character of the observance of this day, is significant
when taken in connection with the occasion. It is not an assembly representative
of the church; it is not an assembly representative of a party; it is in
a true sense an assembly representative of a group of states, with some
aspects that give it a national character. It reminds me, therefore, that
we are here to commemorate
an event of more than merely personal, or party, or local
significance, an event which in some important respects must have had a
bearing on the history of the states here represented and of the
nation.
Whatever of broader import this event has, this it confessedly has, because of the life and work of Marcus Whitman, and because of that life and work as they developed in the mission which was established on this spot and came in common usage to bear his name.
The mission station here at Walla Walla, or more accurately as it was then known, was a part of a larger mission enterprise; embracing at first the station of Lapwai, on the western borders of what is now the state of Idaho, and later in its history other stations in the upper valley of the Columbia. As did the other American missions of that day to the native tribes of the Oregon Country, this mission grew out of a widespread interest in missions to the Indians of the Northwest, which was awakened in the churches of the East in the early part of this century. This interest was deepened, if not first awakened, by the circulation throughout the East of an account of the appearance at St. Louis of representatives from one of the tribes of this valley and of their earnest appeal for missionaries to be sent them.
The earliest fruit of this interest was the mission of the Methodist church, established in 1834, in the valley of the Willamette. In the following year the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, commissioned the Rev. Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman, M.D. both of the state of New York, with instructions to proceed to the Oregon country and explore the same, with a view to the establishment of missions among the native tribes of that region. In the early spring of the following year Mr. Parker and Dr. Whitman set out overland to their destination.
At the rendezvous of the American Fur Company in the Green river valley they met representative men of the Nez Perces nation. These men were so earnest in their request that missionaries should be sent tot heir people that it was at once decided that Mr. Parker should go on alone and complete his exploration, and that Dr. Whitman should return and report to the Board of Missions and secure if possible the sending out of missionaries the next year.
The result was the organization and sending out in the spring of 1836 of the first American mission to the native tribes of the upper Columbia. The mission comprised five members - The Rev. H.H. Spaulding and Mrs. Spaulding, of Prattsburg, N.Y.; Dr. Marcus Whitman and Mrs. Whitman, of Rushville, N.Y., missionaries, and Mr. W.H. Gray, of Utica, N.Y., in the capacity of secular agent. These, with the material outfit of the mission, were well started on their way to their destination before the opening of the summer.
The story of that overland journey in its main points of interest has already been told, especially of how through the months of summer and well into the autumn those two brave women endured
(Continued on Eighth Page.)
EXERCISES AT THE OPERA HOUSE
the privations and weariness incident to a journey of two thousand miles through a wild and perilous country which as yet was traversed only by the narrow path of the trader's trail.
In connection with the coming of this mission to the Oregon country, it is to be remembered that Mrs. Spaulding and Mrs. Whitman were the first American white women that had appeared west of the Rocky mountains, and that these two families were the first American white families that were ever transported overland from the valley of the Mississippi into the valley of the Columbia. Many brave, noble women followed, but these led the way and led it with a firmness of spirit and a cheerful patience worthy of those who should lead the way for that long line of wives and mothers who came after.
It is written, not merely as an interesting incident in the personal history of these families, but as a significant fact, an achievement that had a far-reaching influence on the subsequent history of this country, that in this year these two families first broke the way for the American home from the valley of the Mississippi into the Oregon country. When the British trader, who had never seen a house in all this region presided over by a white woman, who had never looked into the face of a white woman in all the years since he left his home in Canada, or in the British Isles, for the first tie looked into the faces of these two gentle and cultured but courageous women, and when he saw them as the weeks went on turned from his generous and gracious hospitality to build their homes in this wilderness and gather about them the appointments of settled life, he must have had a distinct presage that this country was destined from that hour to go elsewhere than where he would have it go. I do not believe that British factor or Indian chief ever afterward watched the smoke from the fires kindled on these two humble hearthstones curl heavenward against the evening sky, that he did not feel that Oregon was after all to be America's.
Mr. Parker, on his tour of exploration, had fixed on this valley as the place, which, in his judgment, was the best location for the proposed mission. Missionaries, on their arrival, concurred in this judgment. Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding made their station eastward at Lapwai, Dr. and Mrs. Whitman settled here, while Mr. Gray divided his time and services between the two stations.
As events proved, the selection of their stations had been well made. In a purely missionary point of view, the station at Lapwai, among the Nez Perces, was the more successful of the two, and probably has left the larger distinctly traceable effect on the native life and character. The station located here at Waillatpu had from the first its peculiar difficulty. The Cayuse people were less tractable, more disposed to find fault with the missionaries for what they did or did not do, and besides from their situation in closer contact with the diverse interests and influences that centered here, they were more liable to be excited to open violence.
But notwithstanding their disadvantages, this station was a favorable one for the important part it was to play in the later history. The soil, under skillful management, was abundantly fruitful, and so was adapted to that part of the mission's plan which sought to train the natives to productive industry; the station was on what was then the line of overland travel from the United States, within a short journey from its terminus, it was near an important post of the Hudson Bay Company, and finally was at the convergence of that company's two great lines of communication with the East. The various interests of this whole region centered here as at no other place; the various currents of influence that were to determine the ultimate destiny of this region passed this way as at that time they passed nowhere else.
Here then was a station at once of observation, of intelligence and of influence. This was the station which at that time the interests of missions to the native people, the interests of the United States as claimant to the valley, and the interests of the early occupation and civilization of this choice part of our continent, demanded should be held by a man of wisdom and of loyalty to those interests.
Had search been made, in view of all these interests here centered, for the man best fitted to occupy the station, best able to grasp the significance of its situation, most bold and prompt to seize its opportunities and use them to right ends, a fitter man than Dr. Whitman could hardly have been found.
The position, as I now look at it, made it certain beforehand that the man who occupied it must concern himself with other and wider interests than those of the mission. The course of events was to bring from time to time the incumbent of this post face to face with public concerns and duties which he could neither ignore nor decline.
The attitude of Whitman toward those larger demands upon him was never merely passive. He welcomed them as opportunities, and used them to the ends, as he thought, of the highest efficiency of the mission with which he was charged, and to the advancement of the welfare of the country which he loved and which he held himself bound at all times to serve.
These two sets of interests, those of the mission and those of his country, were to Whitman's mind in no wise irreconcilable. On the contrary to his mind they were inseparable. As years went on he came to see that the ultimate success of the mission was so involved with his country's title to the region, that to further the one he was bound by his very duty to that, to do all in his power to secure the other.
His position on this point at
this day brought to acknowledge the justice of American claims, if our
own American government, was to be brought to take serious steps toward
the pressing of its claim to that to which it pretended to have the best
title, American families must be brought from American homes across the
plains and through the mountains into the region claimed, and the way to
be shown beyond all doubt
to be open to others to follow. To this end, which Whitman
saw thus clearly, he addressed himself with tireless purpose, with undaunted
courage, and when the supreme moment arrived, acted with heroic daring.
Nearly fifty years ago, when
these graves were still fresh, a representative of France visited this
whole region, studied carefully the course of events here and the men that
had moulded them, then returned and published to his countrymen that Whitman,
the missionary, was largely instrumental in saving Oregon to the Union.
What this traveler from the old world so long ago saw and uttered, we here
today, after full fifty
years, do as Americans approve, and of this service in
this monument do set for all time the seal of our late but grateful acknowledgment.
We write the name of Whitman large among the names of those who here lie buried. If all the dead of that band of noble men and women who shared with him the perils and hardships of building these new states here lay buried we might still write Whitman's name large because of what he did for them and for us. If all those of a generation now gone who by their lives and their deaths contributed to found and build our nation, or who have by their heritages, their sacrifices and achievements, contributed to make our country prosperous, happy and illustrious here lay buried, Whitman's name would by a wider consent still have an honorable place among them all for the nobleness of his character, for his love of men, for his far-sighted devotion to his country, for his unswerving faith in God.
The Fourth Cavalry band then rendered another selection, after which Rev. W. II. Scudder of Tacoma was introduced. Rev. Scudder attended the exercises as a representative of the American Board of Missions and on behalf of that organization made the following interesting address:
Ladies, Gentlemen and Fellow
Citizens: The occasion that brings us here lifts the past out of obscurity
and places us in the glory of our present civilization. We more than almost
any other people on the face of the globe, are favored with being heirs
of the past. The waters that roll themselves upon our shores brought to
this country a rich legacy, and there they returned. They make it plain
to the world that the future of
America will be the greatest future which this world
has ever beheld.
Historians tell us there are three great elements which enter into nation-making. Our own historian, John Fish, has laid down three elements - the first being oriental; that is, power which gathers to itself victory, but is not assimilative. The second is the Roman, which obtained victories, but is assimilative, and lastly the New England idea; which we better know as the Puritan idea, which is government by representation.
We also have three forms or types of religion - the oriental type, that type which under its own government reared its sable hand and spread darkness over the land. Then followed the Roman religion, that type which for centuries in the East had entire sway, which God ordained should be for the uplifting of the nations, the concentration of union and liberty, and the government of liberty. Then we have the New England type of religion. I see the little Puritan band which began to assert itself and spread its religion in this world, and which said there should not only be union, but liberty. I see these three great forces coming together. The fullness of time had come. Europe, the very center of these three forces, had expended her energies upon the East; there was nothing more for her to conquer; there was nothing more for her to do, and it was at that time, at that very moment, when the clock of heaven struck, and Columbus was born into the world with the religious thought in his heart that there was a western empire over which he could rule. Now see for a moment how America came to be the central spot of these three powers, and how America was destined to be just what she is. The great Roman idea, passing to the southern part of the country, established itself in Mexico, and thence spread itself southward and covered South America. The New England idea established itself from Virginia northward. The Puritans by chance landed at Plymouth Rock. They had originally expected to plant themselves near Maryland, but Maryland was already occupied, and there was but one spot in this country where they were to plant themselves, and to that spot God steered the Mayflower, and our forefathers established that one great principle whose government and religion was to spread over our country and was to bring to our country glory and honor.
Then came the great hero of the
hour. Marcus Whitman, and Marcus Whitman was the man ordained by Providence
to come to this very spot and bare his breast to the forces which gathered
about him and began his missionary labors and induced many of the savages
to embrace that peculiar religion which makes today for liberty and fraternity
and so he began with his wife to show to the commercial power the great
advantage of the American home, and built here upon the
Pacific coast that which we prize as the very corner stone of our republic,
the American home. Marcus Whitman ay not have been the greatest man in
the history of our country, but he was the greatest man that had come to
this coast up to that period in connection with any missionary stations.
I stood upon the spot where a litter later will be reared a monument to
the memory of this man, and I looked over those fields, those sun-gilt
fields, and as I looked over them it seemed to me that the man who in the
early period came and stood upon yonder spot and glanced over this great
country with its absolute barrenness at that time must have been endured
with the wisdom of heaven to know what this country should be to the United
States fifty years after he had passed away. There have been times in the
history of our nation when one was the pivotal point upon which the destiny
of our country hung, and we can say of Marcus Whitman, that he was one
of these pivotal points. That man having in his soul the flame which was
kindled by working as a missionary among the Indians of this place, left
his home in Portland and came to this country, and you, my hearers, are
reaping the benefits purchased by the life of a man who gave his life freely
to the people and to the Indians round about him. Father Eells was a man,
who I believe more than anybody else, had to do with the Indian question
in this country in the spirit of the gospel, but Father Eells was a copatriot
with Marcus Whitman and when they said it was necessary for him to remain
here, he determined first of all that this country should be under the
away and dominion of the United States. What then, is the tribute which
the people wish to say to this man today? With the planting of American
missions here with the establishment of the religions which you and I enjoy
today, with the upbuilding of this portion of the United States as a part
of this commonwealth with liberty and fraternity as its corner stone from
Lower California to British America, there is one sentiment and one undivided
people.
President Penrose then read before those assembled several letters from prominent people of the United States, in which deep regret was expressed at their being unable to attend the dedicatory exercises and assuring those connection with this institution, of their sympathy with and earnest support of Whitman college.
President Penrose also read a communication from Rev. W.S. Holt, which enclosed a letter from James Haves, a full blooded Indian, at Kamiah, Idaho, containing $25.50 as a contribution from the Indian and Presbyterian church to the Whitman monument fund.
The letter is as follows:
KAMIAH, Idaho, Nov. 22, 1887.
REV. W.S. Holt: My Dear Brother - I enclose draft for
$25.50 for the Whitman Monument, contribution of the Nez Perces Indian
of First Church of Kamiah. This little money I send to you for monument.
Please will you ask prayer for my people. Your truly brother in Christ,
(Signed) JAMES HAYES
The Whitman memorial chorus accompanied by the Fourth Cavalry band then sang that grand old patriotic hymn so dear to the heart of every true son of the "land of the free and home of the brave," "America."
The exercises of the day were brought to a close and the vast and attentive audience dismissed. Rev. E.L. Smith pronouncing the benediction.